Three decades after Apollo 13, NASA has shown that its missions are still as vulnerable as ever to small errors with enormous implications.
In 1970, a contractor’s failure to upgrade a thermostat switch to 65 volts from 28 volts in a tank of cryogenic oxygen almost doomed Apollo 13 after the tank exploded in en route to the moon.
In 1999, a full generation later, a contractor’s failure to supply NASA with crucial data expressed in the correct units of measurement destroyed the
"The difference between success and failure on these things is the width of a human hair," said Edward Euler, the Mars ’98 program director at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver.
The most recent errors, no matter how inane in hindsight, have sobered NASA.
"In the conduct of space missions, you get only one strike, not three," said Thomas Young, who led a recent NASA inquiry, sparked by the losses of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander, into the space agency’s Mars-exploration program. "Even if thousands of functions are carried out flawlessly, just one mistake can be catastrophic to a mission."
Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise safely back to Earth.
To NASA’s credit, on its failed Mars ’98 missions, it had only a tiny fraction of an Apollo-size workforce at its disposal, mostly at spacecraft contractor Lockheed Martin Astronautics. As part of the downsizing that has accompanied NASA’s pursuit of a faster, better, cheaper way of doing business, the agency has shifted more responsibility to its contractors.
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said there could be no return to the Apollo paradigm.
"If you go back to command and control you will take the initiative from the contractors," Goldin said during a recent visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
But a NASA investigation into the failed Mars missions found a project organization with too little oversight -- in some areas, the team stood just a single person deep -- indicating some balance must be struck.
"In the conduct of space missions, you get only one strike, not three."
"That’s one of the challenges that anyone running these missions has. In the old days, you did it with a 1,000 NASA people overlooking them," said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public affairs at American University and a long-time NASA watcher. Back then, McCurdy said, "NASA had to hire more contractors to oversee its contractors."
Euler, of Lockheed, said the lesson of the failed missions is that the system needs more checks and balances.
"Not necessarily the looking-over-your-shoulder, but more independent analysis of these things," said Euler, who predicts there will be a reversion back to "the old proven ways of doing business."
But how far back NASA will let the pendulum swing -- from the lean, mean practices of today, back to the gargantuan efforts of yore -- remains to be seen.
"It’s not a question of more oversight, it’s a question of proper balance between empowering people and assuring they are sticking to fundamental, sound engineering principles," Goldin said.
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